Children of Gebelawi by Naguib Mahfouz for Religious Characters and Settings

Ooh, also, Lamb by whatshisname. Christopher Moore

I want to put Ken Kesey's The Last Roundup in California Dreamin',but I'm not positive that's right.

Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, Tortilla Flats, just about any Steinbeck but those are my favorites.

For bookish, I'm not sure if Anne of Green Gables might work?

I'm not sure if Anne of Green Gables might work?

Since I haven't read it, I'm not either.

This is why I ask the hivemind.

And if something looks like it wouldn't fit a category, please let me know. A lot of this is going on brief Wikipedia or Goodreads descriptions.

Well, my instinct is that it would, but she's not a traditional bookish introverted character.

How could I have forgotten Lamb ? It's one of the salonista'a favorite books.

Steinbeck is the reason for the California theme. When people selected authors of focus, Steinbeck, Greene, and Dickens were the most popular. But I think reading just one author will not work as well with the salon concept. Russian authors was our least succesful topic, mostly because it meant we dissected books like in a book club, rather than discussing the general theme. So I basically chose themes that thos eauthors could fit into fairly easily.

Well, the "book" books are pretty centered on reading or writing.

Oh, for war, "The Things They Carried"? If you also do nonfiction, there's "Achilles in Vietnam", which is good paired with The Iliad.

Are you only looking for fiction?

For war, what about the World War I poets, particularly the ones who died in the war? There are a lot online: [link] [link] Also, Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads.

There are also Kipling's poems on colonialism, including White Man's Burden; Mandalay; Recessional; and Padgett, MP, which I like mainly for:

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.

The Things They Carried

I saw that one, but for a lot of those, I was just choosing on instinct. I'm trying to keep the lists to 20 or so, but if there are great things I'm missing, I want to add them. Of course, I don't think the war category will be chosen anytime soon, but you never know, we're getting a few more members and I don't know their tastes.

But dystopian novels and classic boys adventure have yet to win a vote.

Are you only looking for fiction?

Not necessarily (I'm reading Two Years Before the Mast for this month), but that is mostly what we focus on.